


At Life's End

by bwyn



Series: Afterlife [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, it's not a sad story dont u worry, keith's kinda (very) dead and chillin in the afterlife, lance is just supposed to lead him to a door
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/pseuds/bwyn
Summary: “Whatareyou?” breathes Keith.“What amI?What areyou?”retorts the young – man? Spirit? Thing?“Human.” Keith frowns. “Which… you’re not.”“That so? Why?”“You’re… sparkly.”“And you’re glowing, so I guess your criteria for who’s human kind of excludes you.”----An AU in which Keith is dead, and the guide intended to bring him to his Door is not the somber cloaked reaper he was expecting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a picture three days ago while hanging out with my friends, and then I looked up at them and I was like "I... need to write another one-shot" and HERE IT IS
> 
> also......[listen to this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEyVsqxWSgQ&ab_channel=xAMARtheKINGx)

When he wakes up, it isn’t by blinking open his eyes. Instead, it’s as if his brain only just starts to register the information his senses are providing. He can’t remember whether he had his eyes closed in the first place, if he’d gone to sleep – actually, he can’t recall anything beyond the moment he woke.

There are some things he knows, however.

His name is Keith.

He’s dead.

He enjoys anything that involves speeding. He likes yogurt smoothies, but is lactose intolerant. He’s allergic to walnuts. He loves the colour blue. There’s a specific hue that comes to mind, but he has no way of describing it; yet he knows there’s something out there in that colour.

He’s already on his feet, but it’s hard to tell because the landscape is barren. There’s nothing. From sky to land, it’s completely and utterly white. Even the floaty clothes he’s wearing are white. The sensation of the ground beneath his feet is almost nonexistent. The only thing keeping him upright is his subconscious’ assurance that he is presently vertical and the ground is flat.

When he looks down, Keith feels his heart drop before logic catches up. His feet are gone – but when he lifts one up, he sees snow tumble off his toes.

Odd, he doesn’t feel cold.

Or warm, for that matter. He doesn’t feel any sort of temperature at all.

He looks up to appraise his surroundings once more. Maybe it’s because his eyes have gotten used to the blatant emptiness of the white landscape, but there seems to be some added depth. Keith can make out plump snowflakes drifting lazily from the sky, a straight fall with no wind to push them around.

With nothing else to do, he walks forward. It’s disconcerting, having no sensation of cold when his eyes are trying to tell him that’s what he should be feeling. Not to mention the ground is soft, and sometimes it feels as though he’ll step right through it and fall into nothing. He supposes the distinct lack of anxiety despite the whole situation can be attributed to the fact that he knows he’s a dead man.

Uncertain as to how long he’s been walking for, and yet not tiring in the least, Keith eventually comes to a halt. He lifts a hand to scour through his hair, and pauses almost immediately. Slowly, he lowers his hand to study it, and notices the hard crystals on his palm. Once again, he brings his fingers to the black locks. Using his fingertips, he gently brushes them against the frost encrusted there. _Huh_. He blinks a few times, and notices there’s a layer of the ice crystals collecting at the edges of his eyelashes as well.

“You’re a frosty one,” says a voice gleefully from behind.

Keith whips around, feeling his second real jolt of fear since waking. It’s gone almost immediately, fueled by the suddenness of the other young man’s arrival as opposed to his presence.

Once Keith processes the fact that there’s another person here with him, his brain goes on to register that this man can’t possibly be _human_.

The man is standing only a few meters away, a bright smile on his face and arms folded across a chest draped in the same loose, formless clothes as Keith. He stands out starkly from the rest of the backdrop; his warm brown skin is smattered in freckles, but they appear to be golden constellations across the expanse of his body. Some are brighter than others, but there’s no doubt in Keith’s mind that they are emitting their own light. As if that isn’t enough, the man’s eyes are a molten blue, like liquid fire, and there’s a dusty copper shimmer to his dark hair.

He’s ethereal.

Keith thinks it’s ridiculous.

“What _are_ you?” breathes Keith.

A pause. His expression falls, the smile sliding into derision.

“What am _I?_ What are _you?_ ” retorts the young – man? Spirit? Thing?

“Human.” Keith frowns. “Which… you’re not.”

“That so? Why?”

“You’re… sparkly.”

“And you’re glowing, so I guess your criteria for who’s human kind of excludes you.”

“I–I’m–?” His gaze drops to his hands. At first, he thought it was just a trick of the light, but as he pays more attention to his own skin, Keith realizes there is a cold blue light emitting from _inside_ him. It’s hard to tell just where it’s coming from – is it his bones? His muscle? Or something else entirely?

“Holy shit, I’m glowing,” mutters Keith.

“Mmhm. So, who’s less human here?”

Keith frowns at the glittering man. “I remember being human– I mean, alive.”

A cocked eyebrow turns into a frown. “You do?”

“…Pieces,” amends Keith, “Facts. Feelings. Not… not memories.”

“Ah. I see.”

Keith studies the cold glow for a moment longer before looking up at the only other (possibly) human in this winterscape. His coldly burning eyes are fixed on Keith. Brow pinched slightly, lips pursed, he appears disappointed – or at least contemplative.

When he says nothing, Keith ventures with, “What are you doing here?”

“Huh? _Oh_.” The man gives himself a nearly full body shake, and grins dryly. “I’m your guide.”

“My guide.”

“Yep.”

“So you’re guiding me… to what?” Keith swings out an arm to gesture at the nothingness surrounding them. “There’s not exactly a lot going on here.”

“Mm, true,” says the guide, “You’ve made the place super boring.”

Keith frowns. “I did?”

“Yeah, buddy.” The guide mimics Keith’s gesture with a sweep of both arms. “All this is the afterlife _you’ve_ created.”

An empty whiteness filled with snow that wasn’t cold.

“I don’t like what this means for my imagination,” mutters Keith.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve seen worse. Let’s get walking.” The guide spins on his heel, kicking up clouds of snowflakes, and starts strolling off at random.

With nothing else to do, and no other company, Keith follows. “How worse?”

“Same thing, but like, no snow? I don’t think there was a floor or anything.” Coppery hair shakes as he snickers. “Just floating around trying to figure out how the hell we were supposed to get to the doors.”

Knowing there’s other people in their own afterlife, custom made for the dead, has Keith feeling a little odd. He doesn’t feel as though he should know that, but the guide doesn’t seem to care. It does, however, pique Keith’s curiosity.

“What’s the best afterlife you’ve seen then?” asks Keith in a bid for more information.

“Massive sequoias,” says the guide instantly, his hands immediately lifting to gesture as he speaks. “Y’know, the really big trees on the west coast? It was misty, and the path to the doors was this long rope bridge over a waterfall. It was really fuckin’ cool.”

“That does sound a lot cooler than this shit,” says Keith, giving the snow a kick – then Keith blinks, frost breaking off from the tip of his eyelashes. The guide mentioned the west coast. Did he visit the world of the living then? Or was there some sort of land of the dead that mirrored it?

“There was also this one that was underwater,” the guide continues, unaware of the growing list of questions stacking themselves in Keith’s head. “It was a shallow reef, and there was really colourful fish made out of string and glass. That was probably the most beautiful.”

“So this is like, your job?” asks Keith casually.

“Pretty much.”

“What do you do in your free time?”

“Oh, y’know, ju– just–“ The guide breaks off, mouth opening and closing with the sounds of strained breathing.

Keith stares, concerned, before reaching out for him, but the guide gasps out a breath and then lets out a deprecating laugh. Keith’s hand hovers between them for a moment before he lets it fall to his side. The guide clears his throat, pats at his neck, and looks sidelong at Keith with a grin.

“That was a close one,” he says lightly, “There are certain things I’m not allowed to say, y’know?”

“Like the hobbies of a reaper in between guiding dead people to doors?” Keith glances from the guide’s feet back to his slightly amused expression. Another oddity: Keith feels as though he should know those hobbies. “Let me guess. Some sort of craft. Drawing? No, that’s not right. Painting–No, _knitting_. You knit. And… swim. Am I right so far?”

The guide’s eyes widen briefly before he looks away, but Keith spotted the smile tugging at his lips. Was he right, then? He knows nothing about the guide, but imagining him with a set of knitting needles in hand, crafting a deep red scarf – something about that feels _right._

Or – maybe not right, per se, but… familiar?

The guide doesn’t answer Keith, but he starts walking again, directionless. Meanwhile, something in Keith’s chest clenches.

He hastily picks up his pace to catch up to the guide.

They’re silent for maybe a minute, with only the gentle _hush_ of their feet against the snow, when the guide fills the muted air with his voice again.

“I never did tell you what we were looking for, did I?” he hums.

Keith exhales an affirmative. “You mentioned the doors, though.”

“Oh, true. So, yeah? We’re looking for doors. You walk through one of them. And that’s that.”

“And I need you for that _why?”_ mutters Keith as he eyes the surrounding nothingness.

The guide bursts out laughing. “ _Rude_ , but I see your point. Normally it’s like a game of hide-and-seek, and once we get there, usually a few questions crop up. Like, where does this one go? How about that one? What’ll happen to me when I open it? All that good stuff.”

“So you have no idea where the doors are around here either?”

“Nope.”

“Right.”

Another pause as they continue walking. Keith grows bored of looking around and starts studying the glow of his fingers. The guide begins to hum a tune.

“How long does this take, usually?” asks Keith after a long moment.

“Depends,” says the guide with a shrug, “It took _forever_ in the floaty place, but the bridge was really straightforward, and the reef was fun trying to find them so it didn’t feel like that long really. I mean, you’d think we could spot your doors from a mile away, but maybe there’s snowbanks we can’t _actually_ see–“

The guide spins on his heel in that moment to gesture at the scenery – or lack thereof – at large, but immediately drops the rest of his sentence along with his arms.

“Found them,” he says, eyebrows up and mouth quirking.

Keith turns as well to follow his gaze. Sure enough, there’s the form of three doors just far enough that he can’t make out any details beyond their shape and colour.

“Didn’t we just come from there?” Keith narrows his eyes.

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” snorts the guide, “Welcome to the afterlife. Makes no sense.”

The guide marches off towards the doors. Keith follows behind him, eyes glued to doors and half convinced they’ll vanish if he dares look away.

As they near, Keith can see that what he expected to be just a normal front door – the same as one might see on a house – was apparently a foolish thought. Each one is larger than normal, not terribly so but just enough that it’s noticeable. The one on the left looks to be made of glass, but Keith can only see the continuing white landscape through it. Broken pieces of clear glass float within the frame like a colourless mosaic held together by a dreamer’s version of physics. There is no knob. The door in the middle is more oblong and made of a deep reddish wood whose fibres appear to be moving – braiding in and out among each other, never-ending. This one has a wheel like a ship hatch, made of brass, fixated in the center of the shifting wood. The last door looks like it’s made out of wicker, except instead of a woody brown, it’s green and fleshy like ivy. A copper push plate is set near the edge of it at waist height, carved in the shape of a rose leaf.

Keith studies them all, and has no idea what any of them could lead to.

“Alright, buddy, looks like it’s your time to shine,” drawls Keith, looking sidelong at the guide.

“ _Hah_.” The guide steps forward into the rough semicircle made by the doors and throws his arms out dramatically. “These are the _doors of death._ ”

He pauses then. Keith gives him a blank look.

The guide sniffs. “Right, worth a try. They’re not actually called that. In fact, I don’t know if they have a name besides… doors.”

“You’re amazing at your job,” deadpans Keith.

“Thank you. As I was saying–“

“Or wasn’t.”

“– you have to pick one of these doors to pass through. Actually, you’ve got a nice set here, especially compared to this wasteland. Anyway, none of them are going to lead you to the depths of hell or whatever you think might happen. They just change your conclusion.”

“My conclusion?”

“Yeah, y’know, to your life.”

“I’m dead.”

The guide clicks his tongue. “ _Anyway_. This one here –“ He points to the one with the floating glass. “– will give you up for rebirth. No memories of your past life – or lives – and the body is different, but the… soul-ish bit of you stays the same.”

“Soul-ish,” mutters Keith under his breath.

The guide squints at him, waits for more sass. Keith simply stands there, the picture of compliance.

“And this one,” continues the guide when Keith doesn’t snark, pointing to the middle door, “Moves you on to the afterlife. Not this one, but like a communal version with the rest of the people that choose it. Once again, no memories of your past life beyond like, conceptual stuff, but it’s a comfortable existence.”

He pauses with his head turned towards the final door. His burning blue eyes seem to study it, tracing the outline of the leaf and the weave of the ivy. Then, just as Keith is ready to ask him if he’s okay, the guide turns back around and smiles.

“This one,” he says with a too-casual jerk of his thumb, “Is the path to becoming a guide, like me.”

Keith blinks and eyes the final door. A guide.

“And my memories?” asks Keith, “Will they still be gone?”

The guide takes too long to respond. Keith tears his gaze away from the doors to look at him and his speckled golden light.

“Will they?” he asks again.

He sees the bob of the guide’s Adam’s apple as he swallows. “I… can’t say.”

Yet that non-answer alone is loaded. The other two doors have clear implications, but the last one is open ended. The possibility of regaining his memories, or even just anything more solid than the faded imprints currently swimming inside his skull – it’s tempting.

Especially because something about the guide has been nagging Keith since he first laid eyes on him.

The laugh, the crinkles of his eyes, the curve of his smile – all of it itches at the back of Keith’s head. It feels… nostalgic, but not quite, as if someone has taken his childhood toy and made it blue instead of red.

“Do I know you?” blurts out Keith, unable to keep it in any longer.

The guide doesn’t meet Keith’s eyes, not directly.

“Time… flows differently here.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” says Keith, his eyebrows pulling in.

The guide shrugs. “It’s all I’m going to give you.”

Annoyance sears through Keith, but even that is frustratingly wistful. “But I feel like I _know_ you. I– I need to know.”

“Why?” asks the guide, his voice calm and obviously forced.

Keith practically jerks his head aside as he appraises the doors once more. To continue, to stay, or to guide. He sees the appeal in the first two: starting a new life with new possibilities, in a world he wishes for more from than just an aftertaste of thoughts and feelings – or remain in the afterlife as the person he is, a lucid dreamer, safe and content and _finished_. What about the third, then? What made his guide turn to that door? What did his own guide, at the time of his choosing, say to influence him?

Why?

“Because I feel as if I’ll regret my choice otherwise,” replies Keith after a heavy moment.

“This is a decision you make on your own.”

Keith rounds on him, biting back the near desperation in his own voice. “I’m not asking you to decide for me! I–I need more information. An informed opinion. You’re the only one here that can answer me.”

“Is that so?”

“ _Yes_.”

The guide cocks an eyebrow. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Frustrated, Keith pivots away from the guide and drags his hands through his hair. The frost dislodges in star-like clusters, joining the fat snowflakes already drifting down from the white sky. There’s a thought just at the edge of his mind, teasing him like forgotten words on the tip of his tongue. It’s there – he knows it, _feels_ it; yet it dances just beyond his reach.

The guide, as unhelpful as ever, is watching him wordlessly. He simply stands in the fluffy snow, a shimmering spot of warmth in the wintry landscape.

When Keith looks back at him, the guide is smiling wryly, as if he knows something Keith doesn’t and is waiting for him to figure it out. It’s frustrating, but it’s only made worse by the way the guide’s smile channels a bitterness that Keith _feels_ has something to do with both of them.

He’d beg if he thought it would get him anywhere, but Keith is beginning to think there may be something more than just stubbornness holding the guide back.

Turning away, Keith takes to pacing. Each lap is wider than the next, putting more distance between himself, the doors, and the guide standing between them. Thinking too hard is getting him nowhere, and the stress isn’t helping any. Instead, Keith turns his mind elsewhere. He lifts his hand to catch a fat snowflake. It rolls and settles in the center of his palm, but doesn’t melt. With hands cupped, he collects more, one by one, until they’re overflowing.

He’d done that once before, maybe. Except the first few had melted into a chilly puddle in the crevices of his palms, until his skin cooled and could collect the snow.

Another lap, and the soles of his feet meet something hard. Keith stops in his tracks. He flexes his toes. They dig into something new, but are stopped before they can go any deeper. Kneeling to the ground, legs covered almost instantly by the snow, Keith starts using his hands to shovel away the white fluff. At first he expects the snow to never end, but he realizes he’s actually digging deeper, and deeper, and deeper until –

Keith pauses. He reaches down to pinch the dirt between his fingers, and rubs the tips together to feel the soft, yet grainy texture. His heart starts to speed up at the discovery. He’s on his feet and whipping around before his brain registers the change in the landscape.

The endlessly white scenery has evolved. Where once the snow settled flat, it now falls on uneven ground covered in round green bushes, long fern fronds, spindly pear trees and squat apples, dotted by copses of white birches. They continue on as far as Keith can see until the canopy and undergrowth grow too dense. They are in the peak of growth, shining emerald and amber in imaginary sunlight. Even the snow seems to be glittering more.

It’s familiar, but he doesn’t know this place. It’s a place that could exist but to which he’s never been. It’s a possibility.

Keith drags his gaze over the rich green, brown and white scenery until it lands on the three doors and their keeper.

The guide still stands there, but he’s no longer watching Keith. Instead, he watches the weeping branch of a willow tree grow heavy with snow until, finally, it dips and releases the weight in a flurry. The guide seems enthralled as the branch bounces back up, as if he’s never seen anything like it – or at least, hasn’t in a very long time.

“I know you,” says Keith, relishing in the new texture beneath his feet as he walks towards the guide. “Or, a different you.”

The guide levels his gaze on Keith and says nothing. The smile is back; a little dry, a little bitter, the smile of someone who doesn’t want to hope.

“You can’t tell me how I do,” continues Keith, “I get that. You have rules to follow. But, you’ve got a terrible poker face, and no laws can change that.”

Now the guide blinks, a little stunned. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it. This time, it doesn’t seem to be because he’s barred from saying anything, but rather that he doesn’t know _what_ to say.

Keith looks to the doors. “You were dead once. You were in the same position as I am, and you chose the last one. I want to know what will happen if I walk through that door.”

He doesn’t need to focus on the guide to see him freeze, but Keith wants to watch his expression change. He isn’t disappointed by the wide eyes or the slack mouth, but there _is_ something different. Keith can’t help it – he walks closer. He sees the eyes widen even further. The glimmer of his eyes is brighter. It’s no longer a molten fire, but the bright water of a tropical beach. The familiarity – the _nostalgia –_ of staring into those eyes is still infuriating. Keith is starting to feel it in the ache growing in his chest.

The guide exhales a cloud of tiny frost crystals. Had he been holding his breath?

“…Why?” asks the guide, uncertain.

“I want to follow you,” says Keith.

The guide’s expression shifts again; his eyes dart down and away, the gold of his freckles shines brighter against flushing cheeks.

“Why?” he asks again.

Keith’s mouth spreads into a wry grin. “I can’t put words to everything I’m feeling right now, but I do know this: standing apart like this isn’t right. It’s like… it’s as if I’ve been working really hard for something, like I’ve suffered and fought for it, but I’ve been dropped back to the starting line.”

Puffs of crystallized air are gathering at the guide’s lips as his breathing quickens.

“So,” continues Keith, trying to keep his voice steady, and not let the desperation leak into his words, “I don’t want to leave it like this. If–if I can’t get it back, whatever was between us before, I–I at least want the chance to try again.”

Something odd happens then. It takes Keith a moment of looking at the guide to realize his eyes are blurring over with a wet heat – to realize he’s _crying_. The most bizarre part of it is that Keith can feel the warmth sliding tracks down his face. The tears don’t cool in the presumably frigid air. He lifts a hand to touch the wetness on his cheeks, and his fingertip comes away just as warm. When he looks back up at the guide, baffled, he sees the other man is also crying. The glittering constellations on his face gleam through the salty tears, light dancing in their own galaxies.

Keith takes a step forward, heart pounding against his ribs. He’s never wanted to hold someone as much as he does now – but that’s not right is it? He had, once upon a time, and his heart speeds up. There was someone, and _there is_. He can’t remember their name, the sound of it on his tongue, or the taste of them on his lips, or the feel of their fingers touching; he can’t even recall their face, but when Keith looks upon the guide, he thinks he might know where to start.

The distance between them shrinks to half a step. Keith can see the smaller, forgotten patterns in the guide’s skin, gleaming faintly beside their brighter neighbours.

“Hi, my name is Keith,” he says warmly, extending his hand out between them.

The guide trembles, the tears flowing faster, and Keith feels an aching fondness amidst the turmoil.

“Hi,” says the shimmering man, made of starlight and adventure, of love and nostalgia. “I’m Lance.”

He takes Keith’s hand in his. Keith half expects some great epiphany, jolting through him like an electric shock, but instead it’s as if his whole body has released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The relief sinks through him. He has been waiting for this moment, and hadn’t even realized it.

Lance smiles, everything about him bright.

“Long time no see.”

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [a sparkly lance](https://stumblemeister.tumblr.com/post/162457806843/hey-friends-you-should-all-go-read-at-lifes) and [their respective doors](https://stumblemeister.tumblr.com/post/162571437608/another-doodle-from-bitterbeetles-fics-at-lifes) by stumblemeister!!!!  
> [truly....ethereal.....](http://lunchmoney-lance.tumblr.com/post/176386202363/at-lifes-end-by-bitterbeetle-is-such-an) by lunchmoney-lance
> 
> I had no idea where to start with anything except that I wanted this "Lance with freckles like golden starlight, eyes lit by a blue molten fire, a dusty copper shimmer in his hair, and Keith with skin that seems to glow from within, like cold light shining through translucent skin, and frost in his hair and encrusting his eyelashes" ((lit what i had written at the doc as soon as the visuals hit me))
> 
> so I kind of just wrote chunks of descriptions and conversations out of order until they seemed to start fitting together??? and THERE U HAVE IT.
> 
> "what happened in their past life bwyn????"  
> gr8 question, but I leave that up to your imagination :3cc


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